Linked List: July 20, 2015

Monday, 20 July 2015

The Talk Show: ‘Tommy Got Made’ 

New episode of America’s favorite three-star podcast, with special guest Jason Snell. Topics include the new Pebble Time smartwatch, the “Safari is the New IE” argument, the state of web advertising (and its adverse effects on performance and privacy) and monetization, and more.

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Report Claims iPhone Accounts for 82 Percent of Mobile Podcast Listening 

Benjamin Mayo, writing for 9to5Mac:

A report from Clammr collected data on podcast listening habits shows that iOS dominates Android on mobile usage. Despite Android having a larger install base of smartphone devices than iOS, the iPhone is responsible for the vast majority of podcast listening. According to the study, 82% of smartphone podcasting listening takes place on an iPhone with the iTunes Store podcast directory being a significant reason for uptake.

In addition, despite the vast array of third-party podcast apps available for the iPhone, the report says that over three-quarters of users listen to podcasts on the iPhone with Apple’s built-in native Podcasts app.

According to the analytics I get from SoundCloud, Overcast has a slight edge over Apple’s Podcasts app among listeners of The Talk Show. But it’s no surprise that listeners of my show aren’t exactly typical users. No other iPhone app even comes close to Overcast and Podcasts, though. Here’s a screenshot of the top ten clients by “play count” for episode 125, with Horace Dediu.

What’s funny is that the name “podcasts” stuck but very few people use iPods to listen to them any more.

Abdel Ibrahim on Developers and Apple Watch 

Abdel Ibrahim, writing at WatchAware:

I don’t know why developers holding back has to always be painted as skepticism. Is Instagram still skeptical of the iPad five years later because they don’t have an iPad app? Of course not. Developing apps for a new product category takes time. You have to think things through carefully if you want to create a good experience. Remember, Facebook for iPad came out 18 months after the first iPad which was available for purchase in April of 2010.

The truth is some apps are just not going to be ideal on the Apple Watch. This is not a smaller iPhone on your wrist. I’m not sure why people — especially those that cover technology for a living — can’t seem to understand that.

In fact, have you tried Instagram on the Apple Watch? It’s terrible. It has no business being on there. It’s a worse experience if you ask me.

From the Chen Wing of the Claim Chowder Hall of Fame 

For some reason this classic from the early days of the iPhone popped into my head today. Brian X. Chen in January 2009: “Why the Japanese Hate the iPhone”.

By the end of 2009, iPhone had 46 percent of the Japanese smartphone market.

See also:

Jason Snell on Brian X. Chen’s NYT Piece on Apple Watch Interest From Developers 

First, the nut paragraph from Brian X. Chen and Vindu Goel’s co-bylined pessimistic take on Apple Watch developer interest from yesterday’s NYT, “Apple Waits as App Developers Study Who’s Buying Its Watch”:

The lack of support from Facebook — and from other popular app makers like Snapchat and Google, which also do not have apps for Apple Watch — underscores the skepticism that remains in the technology community about the wearable device. That puts the watch, Apple’s first new product since the iPad in 2010, in something of a Catch-22: The companies whose apps would most likely prompt more people to buy the device are waiting to see who is buying it and how they use it.

Snell’s response:

This is a story about developers trying to figure out if they want to be on a new platform, and if they do, how best to accomplish that. Unfortunately, Chen’s story makes it seem like the development community is just holding its breath waiting to see if Apple’s selling watches, while users are similarly waiting to see if their favorite apps from their phones run on the watch before buying.

I’d say Chen’s piece is even worse than that. Apple Watch has only been out for three months, and the full SDK — which allows for truly native apps — was only released last month, and apps written using the native SDK won’t ship until WatchOS 2 ships this fall. Even with the new SDK, it makes no sense to me for Facebook to write an app to put their entire feed in a watch app. (Twitter, in my opinion, wasted their time making their current watch app.) Maybe someday Snapchat will find a good reason to make a watch app, but is it surprising that they haven’t already, given that the whole point of Snapchat is sharing pictures and videos — and Apple Watch doesn’t have a camera? Notifications make sense for the watch — but that already works for all iPhone apps. You don’t need a watch app to see notifications on your Apple Watch. Calling it a problem that many popular phone apps aren’t on the watch makes as much sense as calling it a problem that the iPhone, circa 2008, didn’t have the most popular apps from the desktop, like Microsoft Office or Photoshop. (And after a few years, versions of those apps did make their way to the iPhone.)

Which brings us to Google, and this delicious correction appended to The Times’s article today:

An earlier version of this article misstated Google’s status as a developer of apps for the Apple Watch. Google offers a news and weather app for the watch; it is not the case that it has no apps for it.

Survey Puts Apple Watch Customer Satisfaction at 97 Percent 

Sam Oliver, writing for Apple Insider:

Of the more than 800 Apple Watch owners surveyed by Wristly, 31 percent said they were “somewhat satisfied” while 66 percent were “very satisfied/delighted.” In comparison, just 91 percent of iPad buyers and 92 percent of those who picked up first-generation iPhones were satisfied with their purchase.

Casual users seem to be the most at ease with the Apple Watch, as 73 percent of survey respondents who do not work in technology reported being “very satisfied.” That number drops to 63 percent for so-called “tech insiders” and 43 percent for developers.

It’s just one survey, but rating higher than the first-generation iPhone and iPad is a good sign. Also telling: that satisfaction is higher among non-technical users.